The email and phone records of former staffers of Mayor Rob Ford have not been ordered destroyed, a Toronto city hall official says.

“The city has not received a request from anyone in the mayor’s office to destroy records,” director of communications Jackie DeSouza said in an email.

The Star heard concerns at city hall Wednesday afternoon over the potential destruction or hiding of the records of three staffers who resigned or were fired during the ongoing crack cocaine scandal. Sources told the Star the records were in danger after city employees were directed to delete them.

The Star sent a request late Wednesday to the city asking for email and phone records of the three staffers in question for the time period during which the video at the heart of the scandal has been discussed.

Emails sent by city employees, including political staffers, are automatically preserved by the city, though emails related to “personal” business are exempt from freedom of information requests.

Two people familiar with the system said the emails of specific political staffers cannot be permanently erased from the system.

The records in question were held on the City Hall server and belonged to departed staff members Mark Towhey, George Christopoulos and Isaac Ransom. Towhey was fired after telling the mayor to seek addiction help; the other two resigned Monday after their communications advice was ignored.

Ford did not respond when asked about the records after an unrelated speech. Asked by the Star whether emails of Christopoulos and Ransom were destroyed, Ford’s acting chief of staff, Earl Provost, said, “I’m sorry, you should talk to Sunny about that.” Sunny Petrujkic is Ford’s acting press secretary.

When Star reporter David Rider interjected, “But you would know if,” Provost said, “Sorry Dave, I can’t talk to you about that. Sorry.”

Petrujkic did not respond when asked if there was an order to destroy the emails of Christopoulos and Ransom.

“I’m busy with this,” he said, gesturing at reporters waiting to go into the mayor’s office for a press conference.

Officials in the information technology department at the City of Toronto are required to maintain the computers and ensure that information subject to freedom of information requests is kept.

DeSouza said in a statement that records deemed to be “personal” or “political,” and not directly related to the “city business” the mayor conducts, are exempt from both provincial freedom of information law and the city’s records retention bylaw. “Council members’ personal, political and constituency records are not covered by the bylaw and therefore those are records which they can manage as they see fit,” she said.

The Star established earlier this week that discussions were held within Mayor Ford’s office regarding the possible whereabouts of the video. Logistics director David Price asked Towhey “hypothetically” what Price should do if he knew the location of the video. Towhey’s response was to tell Price to go to police. Towhey ultimately contacted police, gave a statement, and Price did the same.

Toronto police have said they “are monitoring” the video situation.

With files from Daniel Dale

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